UTSA looks for a real home-court advantage

UTSA students celebrate during a Southland Conference mens basketball game between UTSA and Southeastern Louisiana at the UTSA Convocation Center In San Antonio, Texas on February 8, 2012. John Albright / Special to the Express-News.

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Attendance seekers

Brooks Thompson's UTSA Roadrunners have been successful the past four years, going 73-47 overall and 15-9 this season. That success has created a more enthusiastic fan base but hasn't translated into more fans. Attendance has fallen to levels from Thompson's first year (13-17):

Year Average2011-12....1,253*2010-11....1,5602009-10....1,5532008-09....1,4182007-08....1,258* — through 10 gamesSource: Express-News research

UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey recalls an Express-News photo taken early in her tenure as she sat, surrounded by an expanse of empty seats, at a men's basketball game.

Things weren't much different during head coach Brooks Thompson's first season in 2006-07, when the Roadrunners won a paltry seven games to tie the program record for futility.

Thompson said the mood at the Convocation Center during that miserable season was similar to what it was last Monday as the Roadrunners ran through practice in the empty gym.

“When I got here,” he said, “I was shocked at the lack of (interest).”

And so it's been for much of the history of UTSA basketball, which has struggled to cultivate support even with significant improvement — the Roadrunners are 15-9 entering Saturday's home game against Stephen F. Austin — and a booming student population.

Changing that has become one of the athletic department's primary objectives, paralleling its efforts to build and sustain a winning football program from scratch.

“We have a core of fans that have been coming ... night after night,” Hickey said. “But we have to market it, jazz it up and educate (the fans). You have to teach them what you want the environment to be. So we have to do a better job of that.”

This being Texas, however, football is a much easier sell, even in an alleged basketball hotbed like San Antonio.

Despite suiting up perhaps the best team of Thompson's tenure, coming off a season in which they won the first NCAA tournament game in school history, home attendance is at its lowest point since his first season. (Three home games remain, including archrival Texas State on Feb. 25.)

But with the addition of a full band and more aggressive attempts to engage and coordinate fans, particularly in the student section, the atmosphere seems to be improving, especially since classes resumed in January.

Southeastern Louisiana guard DeShawn Patterson would likely attest to that after spending much of Wednesday's game exchanging pleasantries with the students, who had chosen him as their primary target, before fouling out.

Such reactions are becoming more common. And that, said associate athletic director Jim Goodman, is precisely what UTSA is aiming for.

“If players are thinking about the fans,” he said, “they're not thinking about the game. We're trying to build a home-court (advantage), to where teams don't like playing here. You can see they're starting to notice.”

But not quite as much as Goodman would like. Though an opposing radio team recently took issue with off-color comments emanating from the student section, he eagerly awaits the first letter of complaint from the Southland Conference office.

The improving ambience comes in spite of UTSA's home gym, one of the least attractive in a league filled with ugly venues.

A rust-colored block built in 1975, six years before the program started, the 4,080-seat “Convo” bears a striking resemblance to the thermal energy plant behind the main athletic building. Or, if you're more creative, a detention center in the former Soviet Union.

UTSA continues to maintain dialogue with the Northside Independent School District with the hopes of eventually building a joint arena with a five-figure capacity.

In the meantime, Hickey said her staff will continue to work with what it has. She expects that with bigger and better crowds, the Convocation Center's lack of charm won't make any difference.

“I don't want to be negative about my own building,” she said. “What I will say is that if we packed that place, we could blow the other team out because you're right on top of them.

“If you look at other mid-major venues, it's not so much how the building looks, it's that you have people inside and they're going nuts.